Why do I teach in Whitewater? The personal relationships that I am able to develop with my students in a small town with great diversity is what makes Whitewater unique. I enjoy being part of a family here at WMS where we all, both students and staff, work towards a common goal.

Personal Information
I have a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin Whitewater in Business Education and additional certification in Vocational Education.

I have taught a variety of business and technology courses starting with WHS in 2003. The expansion of the Middle School Computer/Technology program in 2004 brought me to the MS building full-time. The Computers program is required for all Grade 6 and Grade 7 students. Grade 8 students may take Computers as an elective.

In addition to my teaching schedule I am also the Middle School Technology Coordinator and a member of the district IT team. Also, I am working on learning a second language through the Spanish for Educators program here at WUSD and due to finish in May of 2018. It is a great deal of fun and hard work!

Webpage Information
Please refer to the course syllabus that is available for each class. The syllabus will give you valuable information on what your child is learning as well as grading requirements.

If at any time you would like to discuss your child's progress please contact me by email or telephone.

This classroom webpage is a valuable resource for an ongoing daily work schedule including make-up work for student absences. The student work schedule is updated live via Google Calendar, both parents and students may access the links below. I expect the students to check this webpage/Google Classroom for links to missing or late work. In addition, students are welcome to contact me via e-mail, phone/text message and by utilizing the IC portal. Each student is encouraged to use a variety of technology resources, including Google tools, to communicate with their teachers and participate in their own learning. The use of cell phones is allowed as a learning tool only. Personal cell phone use is not permitted.

Computer 6

This class is a required class for all 6th grade students. It meets every other day for one semester of the school year. Learning and using good keyboarding skills is a main focus of this course with some practice in Microsoft PowerPoint, and the appropriate and effective use of online communication. In addition, much-used will be Google for email, storage drive, and apps.

This class is a required class that meets every other day for one semester. The main focuses of this class are review of keyboarding, research paper formatting via Microsoft Word, and Excel formulas and graphing. In addition, much-used will be Google for email, storage drive, and apps.

This elective course is an every other day class that meets for one semester. The Scratch 2.0 (cloud based and developed from MIT) is the application that will be used for this course. Introduction to design based computing will include "computational thinking
concepts
(sequence,
loops, parallelism, events, conditionals, operators, data),
practices
(working iteratively and
incrementally, testing and debugging, reusing and remix
ing, abstracting and modularizing), and
perspectives
(expres
sing, connecting, questioning)".
Atatement from Scratch..."Engaging in the creation of computational artifacts prepares young people for more than careers
as computer scientists or as programmers.
It supports young people’s development as
computational thinkers
–individuals who can draw on computational concepts, practices, and
perspectives in all aspects of their lives, across disciplines and
contexts.

This elective course is an every other day class that consists of a semester long movie making project using Cyberlink Power Director. There are many project checkpoints along the way to encourage organization. Students are encouraged to use their personal technology devices during class.